Whether you’re a professional music teacher or simply someone who wants to teach a friend of yours how to play an instrument, if you want to learn how to effectively educate others in the art of music, then you’ve come to the right place. Below, there can be found advice on how to give a novice player the best start possible in the industry.
Plan everything
Regardless of whether you’re teaching a whole class in a professional sense or whether you’re guiding a friend of yours in laid-back kind of way, whenever you seek to impart your musical knowledge on another person, you should have a plan. Your plan should include:
- What chords, riffs, or even songs to attempt based on the experience your learner already has.
- What instruments should be used to get your learner read for the task in hand (should you use a keyboard instead of a piano at first, for instance?)
- What sort of environment should be set up to adhere to your student’s learning needs (will their fair better in a quieter environment than a louder one?)
With a plan in place, you’ll fair better as a teacher and your student will benefit as a result.
Be positive with everything that you do
Positivity is key when it comes to teaching another person how to play a musical instrument. Whenever you enter each session with a can-do attitude, your student will be sure to feed off of the energy. Just remember to remain positive throughout the duration of the lesson, no matter how difficult it might become in times, as negativity or irritation on your part could cause your student’s morale to drop.
Embrace practical engagement
When it comes to learning a musical instrument, a practical, hands-on approach is always beneficial. In this particular subject, your student will learn by being able to get their hands on their instrument of choice. For this reason, you should never shy away from practical engagement, even right at the beginning of the process.
Give them homework
You might not be a teacher and you might not be working for a music school, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t set your student some homework. Doing so will certainly prove advantageous to them, as it will give them the chance to stay in-tune with their learning even when they are away from you. This will help them to enter each session in the right mindset.
The homework that you set completely depends on the instrument that is being learned. In general terms, however, you should be handing out pieces of paper with all the chords, riffs, and scores your students needs to learn printed clearly on them — when it comes to buying ink for all this printing, make sure to turn to Cartridge People, a retailer of ink and printer cartridges. Whether the information that you give them sinks in or not, if anything, by giving them homework your student will see that you are serious about teaching them.
Teaching another person how to play a musical instrument is always going to be a tough job, but you can make it easier for yourself if you take the advice laid out above.
